Women’s Track and Field Set for Competition in Princeton

NEW HAVEN, Conn.—Yale women's track and field travels to Princeton University this weekend for the annual Sam Howell Invitational. The meet will take place on both Friday and Saturday, and will not be scored. To participate, athletes had to meet minimum standards of performance. As a result, the field has proven to be a competitive one in the past. This year's competition incorporates 50 teams, including many that the Bulldogs will see again throughout the season. Participating Ivy League schools include Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and Harvard. Links to the meet's schedule and live results are available here.

The 4x100-meter relay will be one exiting event to watch this weekend, as it has yet to be seen this year. A squad comprised of junior Emily Cable, junior Alisha Jordan, senior Kelsey Lin and sophomore Mackenzie Mathews is entered in the event. Cable and Lin are also set to compete in the 4x400-meter relay—a more familiar distance for the former, who just recently broke her own school record in the individual 400-meter dash. The two are joined by junior Elle Brunsdale and senior Kristen Proe to create one relay team, while senior Sarah Barry, sophomore Grace Brittan, senior Jenna Hessert and senior captain Amanda Snajder will compete on a second.

Brittan and Proe will continue to represent their team in the meet's short sprinting events, as both are individually entered in the 400-meter dash. Freshman Katerra Loganwill participate in her first collegiate 100-meter dash, while Lin has qualified to race in the 200-meter dash. The 100-meter hurdles will likely prove an event to watch, as it will provide Mathews with a chance to recreate her success in the distance last season. Snajder will join her in the event. In addition, four Bulldogs will take to the track for the 800-meter run: Barry, Brunsdale, junior Alyssa LaGuardia and freshman Frances Schmiede.

Yale's long-distance athletes will team up for the 1,500-meter run. Barry and sophomore Elizabeth McDonald will compete on Friday in a race for elite entrants, while freshman Jennie Callan, junior Anna Demaree and senior Liana Epstein will compete the following day. The meet should be a stimulating one for Epstein—as she was the squad's star cross country competitor this past season, but has yet to compete in a track meet.

The jumps squad will boast of more variety in its members and events. In the high jump, freshman Lillian Foote will be joined by sophomore Megan Toon and Snajder, in her third event of the day. Brunsdale will also take up a third event— the long jump—alongside Jordan. Still, Jordan's star performance will likely be in the triple jump, in which Proe joins her.

Both of the team's pole vault competitors—senior Emily Urciuoli and sophomore Renee Vogel—are registered to compete this weekend. Urciuoli is just off a fifth-place finish, one of the team's best, in the pole vault at the Coastal Carolina Shamrock Invitational.

At the same meet, sophomore Karleh Wilson proved the shot put is not the only event she dominates in, as she claimed the second-best discus mark in Yale history. This weekend, she will have the chance to compete in both events, as well as the hammer throw. Wilson teams up with sophomore Taylor Eldridge in the shot put and hammer throw and freshman Kate Simon in the shot put and discus.